Reform on the rise, Tories on the ropes: what’s at stake on May 1?

Nigel Farage insists his insurgent party is on the rise. And, riding high in the polls and with the right-wing media faithfully echoing his every word, there’s a growing feeling that, come May 2, Farage’s self-satisfied grin will be unavoidable, plastered across front pages and news bulletins after a strong Reform showing.

It’s a sobering but entirely plausible prospect.

They might not span the whole UK — with no contests in Scotland, Wales, or London, and some areas postponed due to council changes — but the May 1 local elections will still offer a critical litmus test. And all eyes are on whether Reform’s bluster holds up in the ballot box.

For the Tories, still reeling from years of scandal and economic mismanagement, the stakes are high. And will Labour, struggling with its own popularity crisis, be left languishing in red wall territory?  

In a typically theatrical speech in County Durham, Farage claimed Reform was “parking their tanks on the lawns of the red wall”, in reference to Labour’s historic heartlands in the Midlands and the North.

One poll, conducted for the Telegraph, suggested Reform could do well – and even take control of the council –  in Doncaster, the only Labour-controlled council up for election on May 1. 

Reform has fielded over 1,600 candidates for Thursday’s vote, more than any other party. An investigation by the anti-racism group Hope Not Hate found that some of those candidates have “posted hate, pushed far-right conspiracies, and praised extremists.”

This comes in spite of criticism during the last general election over the party’s failure to properly vet its candidates, criticism Farage claims has been addressed through more rigorous screening processes.

Yet despite the controversy surrounding far-right links and extremist content, Reform appears to be gaining ground in key battlegrounds

 A Survation survey for the Sun found that since the 2024 general election, Reform’s popularity in the Midlands and the North has risen from 18% to 30%.

Labour’s vote share in these regions meanwhile has dropped from 39% to 27%, with the Tories sliding more modestly from 24% to 22%.

Writing for the Mirror, polling guru John Curtice put it bluntly: “Never before have both Labour, whose current average poll rating is just 24%, and the Conservatives, on 22%, been so unpopular at the same time. Both are struggling to keep pace with Reform, narrowly ahead on 25%.”

The Tories have the most to lose?

But, with this year’s local elections taking place in almost entirely true-blue Tory territory, it’s likely to be the Tories who have most to lose. As Curtice explains, of the 23 councils voting on May 1, all but four are currently under Tory control. Out of the 1,641 council seats up for grabs, the Tories are defending nearly 1,000. Labour, by contrast, is defending fewer than 300, and the Lib Dems just over 200.

Though big Tory losses will merely reiterate what we already know – voters still haven’t forgiven them for their dismal record in government.

Appeal doesn’t necessarily equal power

Yet despite the noise around Reform, a spike in popularity doesn’t automatically translate into council seats. Curtice notes how in the 2024 general election, Reform’s support was too thinly spread. In May, it is possible that the party could win a sizeable vote share but still walk away with very little to show for it, a re-run of last July, when they beat the Lib Dems in votes but trailed badly in seats.

And in peeling off right-wing votes, Reform might do more to help their rivals than themselves. By siphoning support from the Tories, Farage’s party could clear the way for Lib Dem and even Labour gains, especially in battleground areas like Nottinghamshire.

‘Unite the right’?

The prospect of a fractured right as sparked calls to ‘unite the right,’ something reportedly championed by nervous Tory donors and seemingly Robert Jenrick, who positively seethes with ambition. Both party leaderships though, have flatly rejected any sort of pact, whether for May 1 or the 2029 general election. Instead, they’re locked in a blame game. Reform candidates insist that voting Tory will split the right and hand seats to Labour, while Tory candidates parrot the reverse.

Messy coalitions?

‘Messy’ council coalitions may be on the cards, but then that’s nothing new in local government. What is new, however, is the prospect of Conservatives and Reform coalition.

Johnathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit, explains the difference. “Doing a deal with Lib Dems in a coalition arrangement is not an existential problem.” But Reform is different, being a “direct challenge to their place as the major party on the right of British politics.”

Take Kent, where a poll for the Telegraph suggests Reform could take outright control. Carr-West though is more cautious: “It is very, very likely that Reform will make significant gains in Kent against the Conservatives and possibly against Labour. So what happens then?” he asks.

“The question becomes, do Kent Conservatives do a deal with Reform to govern?… The national party are saying they will not be doing those deals but my understanding is the rules are that it is for Conservative leaders on the ground to make those decisions.”

Independents and the Greens

While the spotlight might be on Reform, let’s not discount the Greens and independents. Though some of the Greens’ traditional strongholds, like Brighton and East Anglia, aren’t voting this year, they’re in contention elsewhere. The West of England mayoralty, which includes Bristol, could see a tight five-way race, with the Greens tipped as serious contenders.

Then there’s the independent vote, a growing force, especially in communities peeved with the main parties. On the left, frustration with Labour’s position on welfare, Gaza, and the climate crisis, has opened the door to independents offering a more principled alternative.

Take my constituency, the High Peak in Derbyshire. In February, former Labour MP Ruth George was deselected as a Labour councillor candidate for the upcoming county elections. She later announced she’d run as an independent, saying she was ‘humbled’ by the support of hundreds of residents urging her to stand.

George, who narrowly lost her parliamentary seat in 2019 but has remained a visible and popular Labour councillor in Whaley Bridge, is now taking on her old party from the outside.

Independent candidates like her are fast becoming the conscience of the left, offering a way to hold Labour to account. Their rise, like Reform’s, shows how broken Britain’s two-party system has become, and how ripe it is for potential change.

Collapse of the Labour/Conservative duopoly

Peter Kellner, former president of YouGov and political analyst and commentator, will be watching for two key signals on Thursday. First is just how far the Labour-Conservative duopoly has collapsed. With their combined vote share now dipping below 50%, a majority of voters are backing anti-establishment alternatives – the Greens, Lib Dems, Reform and independents.

“Next week could see this happen for the first time in local elections,” Kellner writes in Prospect. “Indeed, I should be surprised if it doesn’t. Historically, the anti-establishment parties have done better in local than general elections.”

His second focus is the national vote share leaderboard. There’s a real possibility, he argues, that Reform could come out on top — not in seats, but in raw votes — with the Liberal Democrats potentially in second.

“If so,” writes Kellner, “Westminster will feel the shockwaves for months to come.”

But the spotlight on Reform won’t end on election night. If the party makes real gains on May 1, it will face a new kind of scrutiny — not just as a protest vehicle, but as a governing force. Should Reform win mayoralties or councils, its competence in office will be under the microscope. And if its performance is chaotic or incompetent, which one suspects it might be, its credibility as a serious contender for 2029 could unravel fast.

Unlike the Conservatives or Labour, who, despite their own council chaos (Birmingham’s bin strikes and giant rats, spring to mind) can point to a long history of local and national governance, Reform has no history to fall back on, or to deny come to that.

In this sense, Reform supporters might want to be careful about what they wish for, as the party’s rise on May Day could rapidly expose its limitations and, ironically, mark the beginning of the end for its headline act, Nigel Farage.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

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